Better Late Than Never

  So now she was in a body unlike any she'd ever known before. Thinking about it now, she had been a boy once--little Martin Cooper from the gifted class,

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  years ago when he'd lived across the street from her and she'd seen him being bullied. But that had lasted only a minute or two, and at that age, she probably hadn't been all that aware of the difference between boys and girls anyway.

  Now she was very much aware. When she'd climbed out of bed the day before, she couldn't even bring herself to take off her clothes to have a shower--it had been just too embarrassing to look at the body she was in. She'd realized that, other than babies and statues, she'd never seen a totally nude male before. It was all too much. So when Ken's mother appeared at the door and demanded to know why he hadn't come down for breakfast, she pretended to have an upset stomach and a sore throat. For a moment, Amanda was afraid that Mrs. Preston might call a doctor, but instead she decided he should stay in bed and see how he felt the next day. Then Mrs. Preston took Ken's little sister to school. And as it turned out, she had a job, so Amanda could be alone and had the house to herself all day.

  With this body, so different from her own,

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  nothing was easy. Talking, moving, eating--everything felt as though she were in a costume. Walking on legs that weren't her own was particularly difficult--she kept stumbling and tripping as she moved around Ken's house. When she spoke out loud and heard someone else's voice, it utterly freaked her out.

  Of course, she'd had the experience of spending a long time inside another person's body, but at least Tracey Devon was a girl. And something interesting occurred to her. Despite the fact that Tracey was a total nerd and she, Amanda, was fabulous, it hadn't been this hard being Tracey. She shuddered to think that maybe she and Tracey had more in common than she'd ever suspected.

  Size made a big difference. She and Tracey were approximately the same height, but Ken was a lot taller. Going up and down stairs, reaching for things-- everything like that felt awkward. There was no way she'd go back to school until she could feel--well, not normal (she couldn't hope for that), but at least not goofy.

  She still felt goofy that morning, but she couldn't stay at home another day or Ken's mother would drag

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  her to a doctor. So she got up, showered with her eyes closed, put on jeans and a T-shirt, and just hoped that Ken wouldn't have to wear a tie while she was in his body--she had no idea how guys made those knots.

  Checking herself out in the mirror, she wasn't displeased. If she had to be a boy, at least she was a good-looking one. And she had to admit it was kind of nice not to have to spend the usual time fixing her hair and putting on makeup.

  She went down to the kitchen. Ken's father had already left for work, and his mother was helping his little sister with her coat.

  "Feeling better?" she asked Ken-Amanda.

  "Yeah, fine," she replied. She took a bowl and examined the cereal boxes on the counter. "Don't we have any Special K?"

  Mrs. Preston was taken aback. "Special K? Why would we have that?"

  Amanda always ate Special K in the morning, because it was supposed to be good for her figure. How stupid of her--guys probably didn't worry about stuff like that. She'd have to be more careful about what she said.

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  "Oh, I was just curious what it tastes like," she lied.

  Mrs. Preston still looked puzzled. "You've been eating Cocoa Puffs since you've had teeth, Ken. I can't believe you're interested in trying something else now."

  "I'm a teenager," Amanda said lamely. "We do crazy things." She poured herself some Cocoa Puffs and was amazed to find how good they were. It occurred to her that boys always seemed to eat a lot more than girls. She'd have to take advantage of this body and indulge in the treats she was always denying her real self.

  Luckily, she could remember Ken's schedule from constantly looking at that photocopy she had, so she knew where to go when she arrived at school. Unfortunately, she didn't know his locker number, so she'd have to lug his stuff around with her all day, but Ken used a backpack, so that wasn't too bad.

  She'd just walked into his homeroom when she felt a hard smack on her shoulders. "Hey!" she cried out in outrage, before she remembered that guys were always slapping one another on the back.

  Barry Levin looked at him in surprise. "What's the matter?"

  "Oh, nothing--I, um, pulled a muscle," she said

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  quickly. "What's up?"

  "Not much. You ready for the French test?"

  Her heart sank. Amanda took Spanish. "Nah, I'm toast. I'm gonna blow it."

  Barry grinned. "Yeah, right. Mister Straight A is gonna blow a test."

  She managed a sickly smile. With any luck, there would be a smart person sitting in front of her whose paper she could copy.

  As the day went on, she discovered some interesting facts about the social life of boys. They didn't gossip about one another, they didn't compliment one another's clothes or hair, they didn't talk behind one another's backs. She didn't have to talk much at all-- she just acted interested in whatever sport the other guys were discussing. Fortunately, Ken had a reputation for being pretty quiet, so nobody seemed to expect him to take the lead in conversations.

  Her one slip-up came when some guy at lunch announced he'd seen a mouse run across the cafeteria floor.

  "Ew, gross!" she shrieked. The other boys stared at her.

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  She managed a feeble grin. "I'm just making up for the fact that we don't have any chicks at the table."

  It wasn't a very good excuse, and the boys still looked perplexed, but within seconds they were talking about something else and seemed to have forgotten her outburst. Which was another thing she decided was different about boys--if a girl did something uncool, her friends never let her forget it. At least, that's the way it was with her friends.

  By the time lunch was over, she was feeling pretty satisfied with the way she'd pulled off her Ken behavior with his friends. No one was acting strangely around her or staring at her. Getting along as a boy with other boys wouldn't be all that difficult, she decided.

  But getting along with girls might be. She was on her way out of the cafeteria when Cara Winters cornered her.

  "Hi, Ken," she said coyly. "Are you feeling okay?"

  "Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

  "You were out yesterday."

  "Oh, yeah. No big deal---just didn't feel like going

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  to school."

  Cara looked surprised, and Amanda realized that Ken was not the type to cut classes whenever he was in that sort of mood.

  She amended her remark. "I had a sore throat. But I'm fine now."

  "Oh, good. I was just wondering . . . could we get together before French today and go over some conjugations?"

  So Cara was in the French class. "Uh, well, I haven't really studied."

  Now she looked really surprised. "You haven't?"

  "I completely forgot we were having the test today, and then I wasn't feeling good, so . . ." She let Ken's voice trail off, and Cara nodded understandingly. She moved in closer.

  "I'll arrange the paper on my desk so you can see my answers," she whispered. "Of course, I know you don't like to cheat, but . . ."

  "Maybe I could make an exception this time," Amanda replied.

  Cara looked positively thrilled. And Amanda remembered a time when she'd been flattered that

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  a guy had wanted to copy her paper. Boys really had it made.

  Of course, her real test would come in the gifted class. Could she pull off her Ken act there? Last month, when she was Tracey, Madame could tell something was up after only a few days. And now she'd be sitting in the same room with her robotic other self. Would anyone sense that something was just slightly off?

  She timed her entrance just like Ken did, at the last minute. And so did Other-Amanda. They practically collided at the door o
f room 209.

  "Hi, Ken."

  Could there be anything stranger than hearing your own voice speaking to you? Yes--seeing yourself through someone else's eyes. She couldn't even bring herself to look.

  "Hi," she mumbled, just like Ken would have, and hurried into the room. Taking Ken's seat, she let Ken's silky blond hair fall into his eyes and peered out in a way that she hoped was unobtrusive.

  Madame rose from her desk. "Yesterday we were talking about the ways in which you might be able to

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  use your gift in your chosen career. Martin had just finished telling us that he wanted to hire himself out to people who wanted an enemy to be hurt. Does anyone have a question to ask him?"

  Emily raised her hand. "Martin, you have to get really angry at someone before your super strength comes out. How are you going to get angry at the people you're hired to beat up if you don't have any personal connection to them?"

  Amanda wasn't particularly interested in Martin's reply, which she knew would be long and rambling. She tuned him out and spent the time looking surreptitiously at herself.

  She knew some girls who actually believed they were prettier than they really were. She was not one of them. Last month she'd seen herself through Tracey's eyes, and she knew she was extremely cute. Now she looked even better. She wasn't sure if it was her last haircut or the fact that she was looking through a boy's eyes, but she was even more impressed with herself. What she couldn't understand was why Ken wasn't more interested ...

  Ken . . .

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  The voice seemed to come out of nowhere. Literally. Madame was giving Martin a long, stern lecture on nonviolence, and no one else in the class was speaking.

  Ken?

  It was in her head, she realized. The voice was coming from deep inside. She wasn't hearing it in the ordinary way, through her ears. It was something else.

  Are you there? Can you hear me? It's Rick.

  And suddenly, she understood. It was one of Ken's dead people, trying to communicate.

  She didn't know whether to be intrigued or annoyed. On the one hand, the voice wasn't frightening at all. It was young and male and pleasant. On the other hand, she realized that this was why Ken always seemed so distracted.

  She wasn't sure if she could talk back to the voice, but she tried. In her mind, she thought, What do you want?

  Nothing special. Just wanted to talk.

  She replied, I don't want to talk. Go away.

  There was a moment of silence, and then the

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  voice, softer this time, said, Okay. And her head was silent.

  She couldn't believe it. It was so easy! All Ken had to do was tell the voices to go away, and they would obey! At least, this one did. It occurred to her that while she was inside Ken's body, she could do more than just ask herself out. She could lose Ken's gift for him! Then the two of them could unite, confront Madame, and drop out of the class together. And even if he wasn't madly in love with Amanda, he'd be eternally grateful, they could act like a couple, she'd be back on top--everything was falling into place.

  And she'd be helping Ken, just like she'd helped Tracey Not that helping other people was a high priority for her, but she had to admit (only to herself and never to anyone else) that it gave her kind of a nice feeling.

  The discussion of Martin's aggressive instincts took up the whole class session, which was fine with Amanda. Madame never called on Ken or Other-Amanda, and the other students had no problem picking on Martin for 50 minutes. Amanda was beginning to understand why the little guy was an

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  eternal victim.

  She'd planned to approach herself as soon as class was over, but Other-Amanda took off the second the bell rang. It didn't really matter--she needed more time to prepare what she was going to say, and there wasn't much time between classes for a conversation. She'd meet up with Other-Amanda at her own locker after the last class.

  Ken's next class was French, and even though she'd never cheated on a test before, she didn't feel the least bit guilty copying the answers from Cara. She reasoned that she wasn't really Ken or herself either, so the rules didn't count. The only problem would be if Ken got caught--but he didn't.

  She got through the rest of the day without any real problems--she just never raised her hand and none of the teachers called on Ken. The only class she now had to worry about was the last one--gym. If she didn't perform well, she could blame it on having been sick the day before, but changing in and out of the gym outfit could be tricky, especially surrounded by all those boys.

  But once again, she lucked out. Ken's gym class was

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  having a lecture day on nutrition. She could sit in the back of a normal classroom and zone out.

  She used the time to revise her original plan. She'd meet Amanda at her locker and set up some kind of date for after school that day or the next. Saturday at the latest. Once they were alone together, she'd take back her own body and let him have his. How she was going to do this, she wasn't quite sure, but she'd worry about that when the time came. Then she'd tell him how she'd lost the voices for him, he'd be grateful, and everything would fall into place.

  Ken?

  There he was again, the dead guy. Get lost, she said.

  Ken, what's the matter with you? Why are you acting like this?

  Because I'm not in the mood, she responded. I might never be in the mood again.

  Please, Ken. Don't say that. I don't know what I'd do without you.

  Despite herself and all her intentions, the voice touched her. The guy sounded so sad. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have just one real conversation with one of Ken's dead people. She'd have a better

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  understanding of what his gift was really like.

  What do you want? she asked.

  I'm feeling really down. 1 can't stop thinking about her.

  Who?

  You know! Nancy.

  Amanda didn't know anyone named Nancy. It was kind of an old-fashioned name, she thought. A grandmother-type name. Apparently, this guy--what did he say his name was? Rick--apparently, Rick had talked about this Nancy to Ken before.

  Why are you thinking about Nancy?

  I'm always thinking about her -- you know that. I miss her so much. Like I said, I really loved her. I still can't believe she dumped me at the senior prom.

  And you couldn't get her back?

  How could I? That was the night I died.

  This was getting interesting. So she was talking to someone who had to have been around 17 or 18 years old when he died. She wondered how that had happened. She couldn't ask--Ken probably knew.

  Do you know what it feels like, Ken?

  To die?

  No, to love someone so much. And to have your

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  heart broken.

  No, not really.

  You're lucky. It's the most unbelievable pain. You'd rather have two broken legs than a broken heart. She was everything to me: the sun, the moon, the stars. I can remember thinking I would die for her. Which is ironic, in a way. I did die, but I didn't even have the satisfaction of doing it for her.

  "Ken?"

  He looked up. The room was empty, and the teacher was standing at the door.

  "Class is over, Ken. I see you didn't find the topic of essential daily vitamins very exciting. But you could have tried to stay awake, just out of common courtesy." The teacher didn't wait for an apology.

  Amanda got up, slung Ken's backpack over his shoulder, and hurried out. There were just a few stragglers left in the hall, heading to the exit.

  She knew her own habits. Other-Amanda would be long gone. She'd been so caught up in Rick's story that she'd missed her chance to ask herself out.

  It looked like she was going to have to be Ken for a while longer.

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  Chapter 10

  JENNA WAS AT HER LOCKER on Friday afternoon when Tracey joined her. "Ready to leave?" Tra
cey asked.

  Jenna took out her jacket. "I'm not going home, remember? I'm meeting my father."

  "Oh, right." Tracey smiled. "Did you hear what you just said? My father"

  Jenna grinned. "Yeah. And it felt so natural."

  "You don't have any more doubts?"

  Jenna shook her head. "It's like I told you--I couldn't read his mind, just like I can't read my mother's. We 're family.''

  Tracey looked thoughtful. "But you can't read Madame's mind, or Emily's, and they're not family."

  "That's different. Emily does something with her own gift, so I can't use mine on her. And Madame ... she's got some weird insight. Did you notice how

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  she was looking at Amanda today in class?" "Yeah. What was that all about?" "Maybe that wasn't the real Amanda." "She seemed real enough to me, "Tracey said. Jenna slammed the locker door shut. "Yeah, and she seemed real last month, too, when she was actually occupying your body. I'll bet she's inside someone else right now." "Who?"

  "Who knows?" The girls walked to the exit together. "Who cares? But if she wasn't there, I'll bet Madame could tell."

  "Could you tell? If you read her mind?" Jenna shrugged. "I guess I could. But like I said, who cares?" They were outside now. "I'm meeting my father at the mall. I'll see you tonight."

  As she crossed the street to reach the mall, she could feel the excitement rising inside her. She was meeting her father! It was almost too much to take in. And she wasn't just excited--she was nervous. This would be their first time alone together. Not really alone, of course--there were plenty of other people milling around the mall. But they'd have only each

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  other to talk to. What if she couldn't think of anything to say? What if she bored him? A couple of hours alone with her and he just might decide this relationship wasn't worth the effort.

  And what if he wasn't there? What if her original doubts had been on target? What if--

  What if he was right there, in front of the music store, where he'd said he'd be, waiting for her?